VICE proves why they are nearly, but not quite, beyond parody

Please look at this screenshot, nabbed from the timeline of @Vice_Is_Hip, a Vice parody twitter account. I love parody accounts, and this is one of my recent favorites.
Let’s dissect this a bit. A parody is funny because it presents something (or someone) real as something ridiculous and/or hilarious, but only by moving the content slightly further than the original voice, not going completely off. This clipping demonstrates just how easy it is to parody VICE: their original content is more ridiculous than the parody content.

VICE is perhaps an easy target in this sense because they’re really the masters and mistresses of Link Bait, the art of making 120 characters (gotta save room for the link!) create a scenario so ridiculous that people will click through, just to find out seriously, WTF?

To give credit where due, VICE’s take on journalism has morphed normal coverage from “look at that fucked up war” to “look at me in the middle of this fucked up war” while also legitimately shedding light (and throwing shade) onto under-reported world events. The best example of both is probably the VICE guide to Karachi, wherein VICE Co-founder Suroosh Alvi takes his epic sunglasses and fashionably over-stretched v-neck into some seriously scary parts of Pakistan.

My internet buddy Jack Huang has nicknamed VICE the “Brovestigation team”, which I think is apt. They may nearly be beyond parody, but I’d bet money that the VICE crew thinks VICE_is_hip is hilarious.